Im feeling reasonably happy with my Kitty at the moment. Rotation still seems interesting, complex yet seems to flow (unlike my Fury Warrior where it feels clunky as hell, but thats another story). Dps seems to be pretty good, perhaps not as strong as some classes but pretty strong I think.

Looking forward though, and I hate to be a moany git, Im a bit let down by the new abilities. I have lots of toons so Ive been reading up on most of them and they generally seem to be getting lots of new cool stuff, indeed as far as I can see most get 2 or 3 new abilities despite spec. My Feral Cat appears to only be getting a raidwide speed buff and thats it, in 5 levels! Bears fair a little better with Thrash too (this is just bear ability right?) whilst Boomkins get just Mushrooms and Trees nothing at all? Anyone else feel a bit shortchanged? Have I missed something?

For me, it's a mixed bag. I love the look and feel of almost all of the Cata zones and dungeons. I feel Kitty is doing strong dps amongst the classes, indeed on fairly long, single target fights we are hard to beat. I also like the challenge, heroics do feel a lot tougher, more akin to old world/tbc dungeons. On the downside, Im still massively disappointed with the new abilities between 80 and 85...well...ability since we only got one....and what a peach it is...small range, small duration, minor run speed boost...Ive only used this so far on recovery runs after a wipe. Also, whilst I really welcome the tougher dungeons, I do have a feeling that ranged toons got a much easier ride. I think melee have definitely taken the sharp end of the stick and kitties especially. With all the movement required in small cramped spaces it can be very tricky to stay behind the mobs, I've found myself mangling more than shredding and I used to be quite adept at positioning. That is, Im mangling when Im not being picked up, blown up, cleaved, spun on, feared or generally blown to pieces. Im definitely spending more time watching to interrupt, stun, pop barkskin/SI and even back up heal than I'd like to. I like a challenge, but Ive always been a dps whore and for me there are simply too many occasions where I can't perform at an optimal level, no matter how well I play it. Hopefully, with familiarity, gearing for me and also for the tanks/healers and just a lot more practice I'll get to grips with it more.

I haven't started raiding yet...for those that have, how did the rake 'fix' affect us? I'm reading the usual hysteria on the blizz forums that we have gone from top end pve dpsers to bottom of the pile again...how are you finding it?

Single target non-movement fights cats do very well. I see two issues for us. The first is that AOE has not gone away. There are many fights and places where AOE is needed big time. Gauntlet in TOT going to last boss for example, not to mention that boss fight. AOE is needed but it seems ferals had the biggest AOE nerf or all.

Movement fights are also hard because much of the time we have to move but are not far enough away to FC and get the ravage. Not to mention all the junk mobs leave behind themselves which means it's hard to shred without taking damage. Yes tanks can be better and move the mob to give us more room but that doesn't happen all the time. So mangle is a damage dealer on many fight. That coupled with low hit it takes a few seconds to know if the shred missed or if you just aren't positioned correctly. those few seconds add up.

Having said all this I've been number two on average for guild runs to a better geared hunter. So overall I can't complain that much. I am somewhat concerned that our CC is so situational that we might get left behind. A mage, hunter, warlock for 5 mans is much better at CC then us. Besides the other melee classes are getting a bad name as far as damage taken is concerned. Range has it fairly easy as their movement is much more limited.

Edit: I forgot to mention that I agree with the lack of new things for a kitty. I mean a 10 yard radius speed buff for a few seconds? What's up with that, especially since it costs 30 energy and has a 2 minute CD. We also got an interrupt which is nice but the energy requirement seems a little high to me. I either have to have a constant stockpile of 30 energy or risk missing that interrupt.

I have been raiding for the past two weeks and was able to see the difference pre/post rake nerf. It did hit us pretty hard, but the sky is hardly falling. Pre nerf I was doing 17k on tron council (still had 3 greens and uninchanted) which is pretty darn good considering the shields were broken and we had to cut dps really early not to wipe the raid. Post nerf I am doing about 12-14k depending now how much combo points love me or not. This has put me around dead middle of the pack for our raids.

Our AOE abilites have suffered greatly though. Add fights like Meloriak put a real strain on us as swipe costs to much and the adds need to be bursted down during the very short debuff. While we can fake AOE damage by "Mangle/rake, change target, repeat" the ramp up time is way to long for anything that requires burst.

I haven't done a lot of dps in 5 mans because I have been tanking them to help guild members get runs. I don't think our less then cool CC will be a big issue for 5 mans. As it was last night I did a SFK run with a Warlock, DK, and Ele Shaman. For SFK that = 0 dps CC's. Our resto Druid could roots, but most of the mobs were casters so we didn't make use of it. We cleared the instance in about 45 minutes with no wipes. Four of the group were raiders, (DK is a casual) but between all of us only I had a raid drop (cloak). So all the gear we were wearing was heroic blues and rep gear. I guess my long rambling point is if you run with folks you know lack of CC won't get you left behind.

I have been running lots of heroics as kitty and also doing some raiding. Single target dps post nerf is still at or near the top. I got the "Son of a..." achievement on Rajh (Halls of Origination) last night pulling 20k dps. My gear is a mix of 346/359 except for my 333 weapon.

Doing tries on Magmaw I was averaging about 15k dps. It is hard to say how that stacked up to other melee as we had the rogues and DK helping on the adds.

We do need fights that last to do decent dps though. At the start of every fight I don't see myself in the top 10, however, once the dots are up, my output rises very quickly.

Cat AOE is a joke now compared to the other classes.

On CCing in 5 mans - we use roots a lot. Even on casters and ranged where you can LOS the mobs. Often in an easy instance like SFK, we only CC one mob per pull and will simply root something and then step out of LOS. Don't forget there is also hibernate for some mobs (very useful for the Beauty fight in BRC).

I have a new question. Let's say you have just done a FB and have zero energy. Would if make any sense to leave cat and then go right back into cat and get 100% energy back? Would this be faster then waiting for the energy to rebuild? Do you lose any rips or rakes that are ticking on the boss?

If the rakes and rips keep ticking and you gain instant 100 energy wouldn't this be a very fast energy filler?

I am pretty sure power shifting doesn't work like that. In BC when you shifted to cat you had 0 energy and had to build it up. In late BC if you had Furor you would get some starting energy when you shifted, and so people would shift at 0 energy to get 40 (I think was the number).

This was changed to WotLK so that you wouldn't lose the energy you had when you shifted (if you had Furor). This was to prevent you from power shifting to go from 0 to 40, but also to keep you from losing 60 energy if you were at full and had to pop out to brez someone. Right now I think energy regens at the same rate when you are in caster (or slower) as you are in kitty. So you will shift out at 0 energy, and shift back and likely have 10 energy, which is the same amount of energy you would have had if you didn't shift at all. You won't gain anything, but you will lose white attacks.

Tinderhoof, are you sure. The furor 3/3 talent says that it gives you 100 energy when you shift into cat form. And I know for a fact tyhat when I shift into cat before a fight I have 100 energy instantly. What I haven't tried is shifting in and out during a raid fight. I will test this against a normal mob tonight by going to zero energy shifting to bear then back to cat and see where my energy is at.

In BC Furor did give us energy back. We even had an addon that we could call from within macros to do the shapeshifting automatically. When WOTLK came, they changed the talent to allow us to keep up to a certain amount of energy (not a percent, but a hard cap) based on the number of talent points. The devs did not feel that shapeshifting for extra energy was a mechanic they wanted us to use in game. You gain energy in all forms, so most of the time you are running around with 100 stored energy - and if you have 3/3 Furor, then you will keep all of the energy when you shift into cat. If you have zero energy and shift out and then back into cat, you will have the same amount of energy (1 gcd) that you would have had without the shifting. You will lose dps due to the lack of white attacks during this time.

Goodmongo wrote:Yes you guys are correct. I wishfully missed the "up to 100" part of the description. So tell me why am I picking 3/3 furor for a pure dps cat spec? Bummer.

So you don't lose your energy when doing things that require shapeshifting such as CCs, battle rezes, tranquility, etc. It is not like you will be missing out on any other dps talents with the current trees.